CHAPTER XII.
IN PRAISE OF AUTUMN.
I am one of those eccentric persons who consider autumn better than summer for climbing. “One of those,” did I say? Perhaps it would be nearer the mark to say that I have often been the sole representative of the scrambling fraternity haunting mountain centres from choice at that season. You suppose I have a reason for my partiality for that time of year? Yes; in fact, I have several. First, I am a coward, and to encounter a thunderstorm on a peak, and have my axe go ziz-ziz-ziz, while my hair stands straight up on my head, would terrify me into fits. Now, in autumn one seldom has thunderstorms. Then I have an aversion to tourists. In autumn there are few tourists; again, I hate to be roasted for thirteen or fourteen hours and to wade through deep snow. In autumn the days are short, the air is fresh, the snow is usually in first-rate order. Once more, I do not love sleeping in huts which, being built for eight persons, have to supply shelter—it is little more—for perhaps twenty-four. In autumn one has the huts to oneself.
Now, have I not made out a pretty strong case? Can you wonder that I have prowled round the Pennine Alps and the Oberland in September and October rather than in July and August?
To prove that one can climb as well in autumn as in summer, I will give a short account of some excursions made in past years at that season. They will be, alas! unexciting reading, like most things “written for a purpose.” Many climbers are fully aware of the truth of what I urge, but numerous beginners in mountain-craft lose heart when a heavy fall of snow occurs at the end of August or the beginning of September, and, packing up their traps, leave the Alps in disgust. In addition to the expeditions described below, I have been up the Dent Blanche, Zinal-Rothhorn, Ober-Gabelhorn, Trifthorn from Triftjoch, Mont Collon, Rimpfischhorn, Eiger, Wetterhorn, and other peaks, and (herein lies the gist of the whole matter) found most of them in first-class order at that season.
One evening in September, I found myself, with Ulrich Kaufmann and “Caucasus” Jossi, the sole occupants of that very comfortable hut, the Schwarzegg. For some time this hut has been in Jossi’s charge, and consequently neatness reigns supreme. We were a cheery party. The sky was cloudless, the moon would be full for our start, the great, solid crags of the Schreckhorn, ruddy in the glow of sunset, hung invitingly over us. We had slept out for the same peak a week earlier, but bad weather had driven us down to the valley without our having taken one step beyond the hut. Now all was changed, and we felt no doubt as to the success of our coming excursion.
At 2 A.M., in moonlight clear as the light of the sun, we were off. The Schreckhorn, it seems to me, has not received its due measure of praise. It has much to recommend it. There is no moraine. An easy path leads in ten minutes or so to the snow. Then a steady ascent, varied by rocks, brings the traveller by breakfast-time to the base of the upper glacier. It was at some distance below this place, in the snow couloir, that Mr. Munz was killed by falling ice.[6] I could not at all understand this accident, for on no part of our route was there danger from this source.[7] But the guides explained that that season, and for some years before, the top of the couloir had been filled up by a small hanging glacier. Peter Baumann, shrewd old man, had always urged the knocking down of this glacier, which would have been a simple piece of work. But the matter was allowed to slide, till one fine day the whole mass of ice broke away and dashed down the slope. The death of Herr Munz, who was struck by some of the falling fragments, was the result.
The upper couloirs, by which the mountain is seamed, were ice, but my guides, with their usual judgment, kept as clear as possible of them, and we mounted by a rib of rocks. Twice we crossed the couloir, but at that early hour there was no danger, and Kaufmann made great steps, like miniature arm-chairs, so that we could get over very rapidly coming back.
From the Saddle we saw, somewhat to our disgust, that there was a considerable amount of snow on the arête. This made our progress rather slow, so that it was not till 9.15 that we found ourselves on the summit, a dome of snow. The view was exquisite; but that day week, when, in equally beautiful weather, I found myself on the top of the Lauteraarhorn, I had to confess that the view from that peak is infinitely finer. In the first place, the Schreckhorn, seen from so near, and from a peak less than 150 feet lower, is a grand object, and its noble proportions and bare cliffs impressed me as few, if any, mountains have done before, while I almost trembled to think that but seven days earlier we had ventured up its precipitous sides, so deceptive and complete is the idea conveyed of its excessive steepness. Then, the Lauteraarhorn is much better placed with regard to that most graceful of Oberland peaks, the Finsteraarhorn—the “dark dove horn!” and from it, too, the beautiful curves of the Aar glacier, winding away towards the Grimsel, are seen to perfection. But here am I, describing the view from the Lauteraarhorn, while all the time I am on the Schreckhorn. One glimpse they both give—that of the Lake of Thun, with the white spire of the church of Spiez nestling among trees close to the blue water’s edge, while behind roll range upon range of purple hills, lost far away in a warm haze which mingles with the soft tints of the cloudless sky. These Oberland views can indeed boast of the ever-attractive charm of contrast; on the one side, ice, snow, precipices of naked rock, utter sternness and absence of vegetation; on the other, blue lakes, white villages, deep green meadows, abundant evidences of human life and industry.
But I become insufferably tedious. Let me hasten away from mountain-tops and descend to less romantic regions. We got down to the saddle very pleasantly, and from there to the hut more or less uncomfortably, exchanging nasty sharp, loose rocks for waist-deep snow, with anything but complimentary remarks on both. We were safely in the Schwarzegg by 2 P.M., and discussing an elaborate tea, the guides’ chief idea of that beverage being to put in as little of the chief ingredient, and as much sugar as supplies admitted of. Tea being concluded, and supper in course of preparation, we looked out for our porter, who had orders to bring up our stock of provisions for the ascent of the Finsteraarhorn the next day. Presently we noticed two figures crossing the ice, who, on approaching, turned out to be Herr Theophile Boss and the porter. The former had made an attempt on the Finsteraarhorn the previous week, and had been driven back by bad weather, so I had asked him to join us on our ascent.
During our evening meal, Kaufmann staggered us by remarking in his quiet way that we had better go to bed early, as he proposed calling us at 11 P.M. We protested loudly, but he only added in his calm tones, “Or perhaps half-past ten.” So, still grumbling, we hastily crept to our straw, and I, for one, can answer for it that I did not know much more till Jossi began to light the fire, when I turned over and had another sleep. No doubt our reluctance to shorten our night’s rest caused the preparations for departure to take longer than usual. Anyhow, it was 12.40 before I found myself, in a very bad temper, trying to keep awake at the door of the hut, while the final look round for articles possibly forgotten was being given by the guides.
We anticipated a lot of step-cutting, so the porter came with us in order to give the guides less to carry. As before, it was a cloudless, moonlight night, and so far windless. We made rapid progress to the Finsteraarjoch, reaching the foot of that vile place, the Agassiz-joch, while it was still dark. Here we paused for food, and just as the grey light of dawn was stealing over the sky, we began to go up, and up, and up, till we felt like the poor wretches who climb the tall chimneys of factories. At last we took to a rib of rock, very steep and planted in ice, to say nothing of various embellishments of the same substance at intervals along the surface. It was heart-breaking work. There was the pass close at hand, and yet we never seemed to get any nearer to it. But after what seemed ages, Jossi gave a sigh of satisfaction, and quitting the rocks, began to traverse the snow. Soon we reached a warm and sheltered spot, where we suggested a halt for luncheon in the genial rays of the sun. But no; it was not the usual luncheon-place; people always had lunch on the Saddle (five minutes farther), and therefore we must have lunch on the Saddle. Theophile ventured to protest, and was promptly sat upon; so to the Saddle we went. There we had our appetites interfered with by various things. First, we were disquieted by the aspect of the ridge, now first completely seen, which had put on an entire and apparently not too closely fitting suit of ice and powdery snow. Of rocks one hardly saw a trace. The guides munched very fast, nodded their heads, addressed warm expressions of disapprobation to the ridge, and seemed very jolly on the top of everything. The wind blew, our teeth chattered, the eatables nearly froze, and we, too, pretended we were having an awfully good time. But the happiest moments come to an end, and so did our luncheon, after which, blue of nose and hand, we struggled along in the face of a driving mist. Well, it was not so bad as it looked. The guides spared no trouble, and dug out the buried rocks like terriers after a field-mouse. Progress was necessarily slow, and we did not seem to make much way. At last the Hugi Saddle was reached, and the work became easier. The snow was now firmer, we could kick out good steps without difficulty. Finally the slope eased off, and in a few minutes we stood by the stone man on the summit. The view was fine, the mist having cleared off just as we reached the top. But it was already eleven o’clock, so we did not stay long, but began the descent after about ten minutes’ halt on the summit. The climb down to the Agassiz-joch was long; it took us nearly four hours, including half-an-hour for lunch, to get there. It was thus almost 4 P.M. when we embarked in that charming slope. Tedious as had been our ascent of it, our descent was much worse; and there are stones, and when stones make descents, they do it pretty quickly. But we won’t talk of the stones; none of us got our heads broken. Well, we came down that nice lively slope and the icy rocks, and got into the couloir, and came down that; and at last—being late in the year—it grew dusk. We were beginning to think that we must be somewhere near the first of the bergschrunds (I cannot conscientiously say that they were more than a couple of inches wide), when suddenly the porter exclaimed, “I can’t find the track!” We could not make this out. The steps had been easily felt a moment before. He fumbled about for a bit, but still without success; so Theophile, who was just behind, went down a few steps and put out his hand to feel for them. Instantly he drew it back, and said in rather an awed voice, “There has been an avalanche.” Jossi at once untied from the back, sprang down to the front, put himself in the porter’s place, and led away in the dark in such splendid style, that in fifteen minutes or less we were down on the plateau of the Finsteraarjoch. Here the lantern came into use, and we carefully threaded our way through the icefall of the glacier. Our tracks of the morning were of the utmost value, and thanks to them we encountered no difficulties whatever.
It was late when we reached the Schwarzegg hut, so we decided to sleep there once more, and the sun was high in the heavens next morning before we sat down to our coffee.
Here is another autumn experience, in which, as a nice, cheering introduction to our day’s climbing, we got asphyxiated. “Were we smothered, then? Were we suffocated?” asks the unthinking reader. No, we were not “asphyxiated dead,” as an Irishman would say; we were merely put to sleep at inconvenient periods during the day, after being put to sleep with greater soundness than usual during the preceding night.
But this fragmentary style and absence of all precise information points to something like present asphyxiation; so I must beg leave to say that though I date this from a health resort, I am not a “head-patient,” as I once heard those persons classified who were in a particular sanatorium for something or other that was not lungs. It was an enlivening place, that particular health resort. If a youth was ill-mannered, he could not be kicked, because “one can’t kick an invalid, you know;” or else the excuse was, “Poor fellow! he doesn’t mean it; he’s off his chump—head-patient, you know.” My impression is, that that health resort was as fine a school for self-restraint in the naturally self-restrained, and for downright uncompromising selfishness in those who already were accustomed to look after No. 1, as I know of.
Still I am a long way from our starting-point. Let me make an effort, cross the Lauteraarjoch from Grindelwald, walk down the level glacier beyond, and get to it—“it” being the sumptuous dwelling known as the Dollfus Pavilion.
Why the good gentleman who built this hut should have constructed it at a distance of three miles from water, was the problem which puzzled our heads while we lay in the sun near the young forests growing up on every side. It was lucky that some eyes, sharper than mine, saw these specimens of Alpine timber, as otherwise we might have stretched our weary limbs on the top of them. Later it transpired that an experiment had been tried in forestry on these slopes, and the poor little twigs had been carefully planted with the idea that, in time to come, they might grow.
As evening drew on, we retired to the hut and made up a glowing fire, destined a few hours later to reduce us to that comatose state I have hinted at above. Perhaps the sluggish condition of mind and body which we experienced next morning was also in part owing to three out of the four members of the party having consumed six basins of very thick soup apiece and twelve large potatoes. The soup, of course, could not be wasted, though personally I would have rather lived on it for three days than have had to swallow it all in one.
After waking with some trouble, and consuming the above-mentioned soup, we tumbled out of the hut, floundered all in a heap down to the glacier, and began to go along it in a dreamy stagger, varied by a rude awakening, as, from time to time, one or another walked into a crevasse, rubbed his eyes, got out again, and proceeded on his way. Those great-great-great-great-etc.-grandfathers of ours were wise people to keep off glaciers in their generation. Think what choice language the modern mountaineer finds all ready to his tongue after he has walked for three hours up or down (if there is an up or a down) the Aar glacier, and then discovers that he is no farther. Imagine for an instant what that glacier must have been when it came to the piled-up moraine across the Haslithal near Meiringen. Next time you find yourself pacing the Aar glacier (I have no doubt that you vowed on the last occasion you never would again, but you surely will), think of what it was in the olden time, even when it reached only to the Grimsel, and be thankful that you climb in the nineteenth century.
At last, as we began to think that the Strahlegg Pass really was rather nearer than it had been some hours earlier, we halted and attempted to rouse each other. A warm wind swept up in our faces; our limbs were like lead, our minds in a condition of placid imbecility. But when, after some trouble, we dug a little cold water out of the glacier, the effect was magical, and emboldened by the sense of our returning faculties, we promptly decided to have breakfast under a great tower of ice which had rolled down from a glacier clinging to the slope above.
We were now equal to all emergencies, and ready to cope with the largest and most varied collection of loose stones I ever saw in my life. The Saddle (which we struck just beyond the drop referred to on page 5, vol. ii. of the second series of “Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers”—at least I should imagine that this gap is the one therein described) and the fine arête beyond were a welcome change from the “shocking state of disrepair” of the face. The entire ridge gives as good a scramble as any one fond of rock-climbing can wish for. Nowhere excessively difficult, it is always sensational, and the rocks are big and firm. Most of the time the party is right on the crest, and can glance straight down to the Lauteraar glacier on the one hand or to the Strahlegg on the other. The Lauteraarhorn is seldom taken; probably on account of the trouble of getting at it. People also seem to think that if they have been up the Schreckhorn, they have seen everything of interest in that direction. In this idea they are, in my opinion, quite mistaken. I have already referred to the view of the Schreckhorn and Finsteraarhorn as well as to that of the Lake of Thun to be obtained from the Lauteraarhorn, and I think that it is very much finer than anything one sees from the Wetterhorn, Jungfrau, or any other of the Oberland peaks with which I am acquainted.
After an hour spent on the summit, we reluctantly began the descent, and at 4 P.M. were on the Strahlegg, while at 5.30, just as the peaks around began to glow with the rosy hues of sunset, we were nearly off the Zasenberg. From here one enters on the preserves of the Interlaken “tripper,” so I will abruptly close.
In the next chapter I will give the last of my experiences at my favourite time of year, and talk to you about two old friends—not, alas! with new faces.